In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder

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Pregnancy makes emotional manipulation and violence more visible; stealthy, indulgent public prosecutors. You would be hard pushed to find someone that has not been impacted by Domestic Violence even in some small way. Moreover, This largely answers my troubles with legal procedures in matters such as sexual harassment crimes. There is nothing wrong with the modern presumption of innocence legal process, but it is worth noting that its premise is like the contemporary judicial process, which puts the plaintiff and the defendant on an equal footing, and a premise that is insufficiently justified cannot draw a valid conclusion.

Though I will say, women especially should read this book as they continue to suffer from domestic violence at incredibly high rates. So pleased that this superb body of work has been read by so many and starting to influence policing and policies.Coercive control is frequently driven by the fears of its perpetrators, and maintained by the fears of its victims. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. My colleagues are now ploughing through this as well and they all agree that a tidal wave of change is coming based on our understanding of control from this work.

I try not to generalise and I was uncomfortable initially with the author's use of statements such as "women are", "men do this", etc. Evidence of coercive control and physical injuries led to a reinvestigation, which challenged initial assumptions and resulted in Kasia’s case being correctly identified as a murder. This book, for me, was a fascinating and disturbing insight into controlling behaviours, early signs, and how quickly they can escalate into something far more sinister. For some people it’s definitely a bit of the good times are really good, I just want to make the good times longer and longer, overlaid with a very real fear of what will happen – that the bad person will come back with a vengeance if they tried to leave.It implores readers to look for ‘red flags’ in past relationships, as well as the likelihood that somebody will repeat this behaviour. I work in the court system and am often frustrated with books that try to illustrate failings but I was impressed with this book. I found this book to be extremely validating for victims of coercive control/domestic abuse (both seen and unseen). Jane does a fabulous job of highlighting control ways we can all sometimes contribute to victim shaming and forces us all to take accountability in our approach of the victims of such debilitating, unsettling and trauma fuelled abuse. Monckton-Smith rebuts the long assumed "crime of passion" myth that underpins the loss of control doctrine (a partial defence to murder in the UK and some other common law jurisdictions) with a well-argued thesis that murder arises through a series of stages in a "dangerous relationship" that ends in murder.

Stage 4 is the trigger and this is perhaps where it becomes personal, a head of state decides they have an entitlement to something (lebensraum? Domestic homicide is a pandemic so pervasive that the soaring figures cause weary resignation rather than alarm.In this book, Monckton-Smith shares a glimpse into a world of toxic masculinity and coercive control, one in which the tools are shame and fear, helped along by a media and justice system who are far from shedding sexist notions of men and women's roles in society. By recognising these patterns, we can track how – and why – risk may escalate for victims and we can provide crucial intervention. It is not a private matter, and it is not simply a police matter; it is in all our interests to stop giving abusers excuses and justifications for controlling and self-centred patterns. I genuinely feel better-informed and safer having read this book, because now I know what to look for and know that saying you’re ‘crazy’ is never the right answer.

I think we need to stop seeing it as an argument between people and start seeing it as a dangerous situation in which somebody has become a threat to somebody else. Occasionally Jane Monckton-Smith's writing appears to lose a little direction and clarity; the subject matter however, clearly speaks for itself!I found it really interesting especially as coercive control in romantic relationships is starting to be taken seriously legally and I think more people should know the warning signs of an unhealthy relationship. Jane Monkton-Smith takes us through the eight stages that an abuser will follow should the worst happen, but of course there are many more who make journeys along, or around, the earlier stages. The process of escalation is examined in chapter five, with a focus on stalking based on fixation, obsession, unwanted contact and repeated behaviour. When people think they’re in love, they’re totally happy for things to go really fast, and some of those relationships will be OK. If lawyers and judges had more knowledge about how domestic abuse works that would then become part of the adversarial arguments.